NO3M’s 1930’s-Style Field Day

PublishedMay 21, 2017

Eric, NO3M, posted the following to the NCC email reflector. Sounds like a lot of fun!:

Just want to let everyone know that I’ll be hosting a Field Day setup
again this year focused on 1930s type homebrew gear. Everyone is
welcome to come out to the farm (NO3M QTH) for as long as they’d like,
either day (Sat / Sun), and overnight if you don’t mind crashing in the
barn (fresh hay bale beds!). The station should be on the air at least
until 3AM Sunday morning and back up by 8-9AM.

The plan is to have a generator so we can claim “A” category. At the
moment, only one CW station is planned, but there has been some
discussion of a possible SSB station. We’ll put that station up in the
barn

The receiver will be a homebrew 1934 superhet as long as it behaves. It
was doing all sorts of weird things at Breezeshooters, which at the
moment are fixed. Backup receiver will be the HRO-5 we used last year.

The transmitter is a newly built three-stage rig. At the moment, it is
only doing 30W instead of 150W. Hopefully that will be fixed in the
next week or so. If not, I’ll resort to a good old 203A or (gasp) 811
triode amplifier so we can at least hit 100W.

Planned bands are 20-160M, focused mostly on 40M and 80M.

I also have a vintage Speed-X straight key on the way, bug will be wired
in parallel. Welcome to bring your own favorite key.

Not sure what’s going on as far as food, but hopefully we’ll fire up the
grill with some lamb and chicken (farm raised), fresh walleye or other
local catches, and burgers / hot dogs. Maybe a casserole to compliment
the meats. Water, coffee, cola, and beer (Yuengling), maybe some
homemade iced tea.

Pass the word to anyone that might find an interest in operating antique
style gear.